Life has been particularly rough lately on Dylan (Cameron Johnson). He’s nearing his high school graduation, and experiencing all of the growing pains that come with that. He has no college prospects, having been kicked out of two other high schools already, and never taking his schooling too seriously. His mom (Tiffany Shepis) assumes the worst of him and gives him an impossibly hard time, plus she has the nerve to be dating a stuck up and serious Reverend (Kevin Jiggetts), who insists on calling Dylan “son”. Dylan angrily leaves a “family dinner” with his mom and Reverend Gill to go to a friend’s party and get his mind off of things, much to their disappointment.

Dylan starts making some questionable choices, drinking, acting out of character – and his best friend Casey (Liana Ramirez) notices and tries to set him straight. They decide to wind down their evening with some of their closer friends and forgo the big rager, and Dylan feels some sense of peace and contentment, but that will be short lived. When Dylan rescues a girl who seems to be injured from an accident outside, and there’s something extremely familiar about her. It turns out, she’s Bebe A. Light (Scout Taylor-Compton), pop icon, and Dylan’s biggest crush. What starts out as a wild night leads Dylan into a world, and an underworld, ten times bigger and wilder than he ever planned for.

STAR LIGHT combines as many horror tropes as it can slam together – a bunch of teens in a house in the woods, a surprise guest star, sex, drinking, a dumb blonde, and a visit from the Prince of Darkness — or, at least, his hired hand. STAR LIGHT suffers from what I call “out of a hat” filmmaking – it almost seems like the idea was strung together by pulling concepts from a hat, or some game night improv. It’s too wild and unfocused for any one concept to hit at one hundred percent, and even as a discerning movie watcher I found myself repeatedly confused.

The cast of STAR LIGHT is predictably unbearable. Which is to say, they all perform to the enth of their film cliche perfectly. Chandler Rachelle as Sara is the quintessential scream queen- overt cleavage, overly glossed lips, and all. Bret Roberts as Anton (that “hired hand” I mentioned earlier) is in moments creepy and comical – not ever remaining in a single accent or a single style for too long. His performance is nomadic and nebulous, in a way that unfortunately led to (unintended) laughter on my part. The other players are just that – merely players, as Shakespeare wrote. Nothing spectacularly good or bad, but perfectly suited for the parts they were given.

STAR LIGHT suffers from a gotcha, after gotcha, after gotcha ending – I think it could have ended about twenty minutes before it did – and you know what they say about too much of a good thing…

STAR LIGHT may earn a foothold in the cult scene, more as a spoof than anything serious, but not for a lack of enjoyment on our parts. While my critical eye sees lots of flaws in STAR LIGHT,  I couldn’t help enjoying myself along the way. As is true of other films by writer/director Mitchell Altieri and via producer Jeffrey Allard, such as The Night Watchmen (Which gets a nice poster cameo in this film) it’s all about the blood, boobs, and banality (as much as we can get of all three)- and a hell of a lot of fun. And really, what else is horror there for? Party on.

5/10 stars